Insurance savings mean pay raise for Aurora city employees; golf carts illegal on streets

The Aurora City Council voted to use money saved in insurance costs to give Aurora city employees a raise during their meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 9.
According to unofficial minutes from the meeting, City Manger Jon Holmes reported a savings of $200,000 with insurance elections by city employees. He proposed returning some of the money to the employees in the form of a 1.5-percent salary increase, which will come in addition to an already approved 3.5-percent pay increase. Mayor Dawn Oplinger stated she was excited to move forward with the pay increase. Councilman Don McWade also spoke in favor of the pay increase, stating a happy employee is a good employee.
During the discussion of the pay raise, Chairman Pro Tem Doyle Ferguson asked if there was a salary benchmark. Holmes replied that he compares Aurora with cities of about the same size to make sure salaries stay within range.
The council also discussed the city’s personnel manual. One topic brought up was overtime for employees. Orville Maples, wastewater superintendent, said he realized the city is not required to pay overtime, but when a department has only four employees, it’s hard not to acquire overtime.Robert Ward, fire chief, also addressed the overtime concern. He said he would like to see overtime considered, because his staff carries pagers 24-hours-a-day, and the fire department works a 3,023-hour year.
Ward also discussed the city’s tobacco use policy. He said the city doesn’t permit tobacco use within city buildings, but the fire station has a designated smoking area in the bay area in the far north corner of the building, used by both firefighters and police, which they can go to when it is cold or raining. He said he would like to see the no-smoking policy revised within the station to specify a smoking area.
Another concern addressed was vacation. Maples said vacation is looked at as being earned, not a benefit. He added he didn’t feel it was fair to penalize an employee called in on a weekend or a holiday.
Holmes told the council that if they were open to making changes within the manual, the changes would be made, and then the manual would be brought back to the council.
During the public portion of the meeting, Jack and Sarah Rickman both asked the council about riding golf carts on the city streets. Jack said he would like to be able to ride his golf cart on the city streets. Sarah said being able to use golf carts would allow them to save money on gasoline, which would be helpful because they are on a fixed income, and it would also allow them a certain measure of freedom. Richard Witthuhn, chief of police, stated golf carts are not allowed on city streets. Holmes said it would be on the agenda for discussion during the next council meeting.